


No Illusions

by tenshinokorin



Category: Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Genre: M/M, and Yuli is 27, before you have a coronary, bishonenink christmas special, no unsolicited concrit please, this is set in 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2783927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenshinokorin/pseuds/tenshinokorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You did what you did to me, now it's history I see. (written for the 2014 Advent Calendar)</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Illusions

**Author's Note:**

> NB: I've been trying to write a Rajura fic to this song for as long as I've known them both, and though I've tried many times I finally got to do it this year. Little did I know that what the fic (and Rajura) needed wasn't Sh'ten's ghost; it was Yuli. (Takes place after the end of [Remnants](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1366759). In case you're wondering why Yuli's 27 and wearing the Oni armor.)

_Winter's cityside_  
 _Crystal bits of snowflakes_  
 _All around my head and in the wind_  
 _I had no illusions_  
 _That I'd ever find a glimpse_  
 _Of summer's heatwaves in your eyes_  
 _You did what you did to me_  
 _Now it's history, I see_  
 _Here's my comeback on the road again_  
Alphaville - _Big in Japan_

  


It was easy enough to slip away from the party. Rajura was not the master of illusion for nothing, and his escape required nothing so crass as a replica of himself to sit at the table in his place, or an elaborate distraction to make his companions look the other way. Illusion was a creation of the mind, not of the eyes. And so it only took a whisper of his power to make the others believe there was nothing amiss in his absence, to pass by the wait staff without receiving so much as a glance of curiosity, and to step out into the cold, glittering heart of the city.

It was not that he disliked his companions. There was no better friend than an old enemy, especially when everyone involved was drunk. When Rajura left, they were not even divided by their former alliances; with Korin sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Anubisu, and Naaza pressing Suiko to have another drink. The deadliest of conflicts, the truest of allegiances, the yawning chasm of centuries all fell away before their common bonds of the Armor. Indeed, as nine parts of a whole, they were all very much the same, and with their battles long in the past, they knew each other as well as a man knows a twin that shared the womb with him.

Which was why Rajura had to leave. Had he stayed, he would have found himself laid bare beneath their unspoken understanding, his layers of deception and illusion peeled away like a courtesan's twelve-layer robe. They would look at him, and know him: both his old allies and his old enemies and the last to join their number, the one that made them nine again, the child-no-longer-a-child that straddled the border between the mortal world and the Youjakai. Jun's eyes had that old gleam of Sh'ten's, the springtime quickening that could urge dead wood into flower, the scythe-sharp intuition that could cut away every cobweb he could conjure. Rajura could think of nothing he feared more. So out he fled into the city, though the cold gnawed at him and the modern world overpowered his senses.

He wanted to say he hated it. It was too much this or not enough of that, too plain, too noisy, too crowded. But the city frightened Rajura only a little less than the others did. He did not like the fear. For too many years he had forgotten what it meant to be afraid of anything. It had vanished long ago, along with his humanity. But with the Oni yoroi in the hands of a true armor-bearer once more, Rajura could feel the coming of the spring: irresistible, inexorable. There was no way to pass through to his own season of summer without first allowing that messy rebirth to take place.

Rajura hunched down into his coat, his vestigial illusion allowing him to pass unnoticed in the crowd. Even without it, his appearance would not have elicited comment. Jun had taken care to provide the former warlords with attire suitable for the modern world. Naaza and Anubisu had been full of praise for the garments, fighting over the mirror to admire themselves, as vain as two princesses with new kimono. They spoke highly of the colors, of the myriad textures, of the clever fastenings. Anubisu zipped and unzipped his coat so much that Jun had to tell him, gently, that it was only meant to do that so many times.

Jun asked what Rajura thought of his clothes--strange things called a sweater and a jacket and jeans--and Rajura replied that he found them warm enough, but confining. Jun had looked hurt. Rajura cursed himself for even noticing the boy's unhappiness.

Jun was, of course, the problem. Not his armor, not the fact that he stood now in Sh'ten's place. The boy himself. He was not even a _boy_ , though in his mind Rajura could not admit that Jun was older now than Rajura had been when he became the Gen Masho and time had stopped for him. There were many things about Jun that Rajura could not admit, from the name he preferred his friends to use ( _Yuli_ , a horrible, mewling, alien sound) to the quickening of Rajura's pulse when Jun stood too close beside him. It did not matter that Sh'ten's ashes were long cold in the ground. Rajura had no intentions of taking another lover, much less Jun. The Oni, with his honest loyalty, was anathema to every lie Rajura held dear.

Or so he told himself, with every step, as the cold seeped through his modern clothes and chilled him to the marrow, as snowflakes snagged in the lashes of his good eye. He followed no direction, wandering aimlessly through the streets, lost in a web of his own making. He might have done so until sunrise had a voice not shaken him out of his reverie.

" _There_ you are."

Rajura looked up. He was in a wooded place, with paths of neat stone, the bare black trees strung with tiny white lights, like branches full of stars. Jun was just ahead of him, having come to the same place by some other path. He stood in the shadow of an old stone lantern, and in the snowy mist beyond him Rajura could see the slopes and spires of a darkened temple. It was a park, then, some place where modern Tokyo had corralled and cataloged its past for safekeeping.

 _Fitting_ , Rajura thought, with some bitterness. Aloud, he said only, "I found the party not to my liking."

Jun's smile waned; something went dangerously taut in his jaw. "Yeah," he said, in that sloppy dialect all of them save Korin used, "don't think I didn't notice you going."

Rajura kept his face carefully still, his heart stuttered with surprise. Not even Sh'ten had been able to pierce his illusions. How did this boy--

"You know," Jun continued, folding his arms and leaning back against the lantern, "if you don't like me, just say so. Quit dicking around about it."

Rajura was not entirely sure what _dicking around_ entailed, exactly, but he got the point. Jun's angry words could not conceal the hurt behind them, obvious as a blossom on a naked sakura tree. Just like Sh'ten.

Rather than respond to that familiar injury, he walked closer to Jun, on pretense of looking at the temple beyond. "I once lived here, you know," he said, "It was nothing more than a village then, a muddy place in the road. Nothing of that remains now. Even this relic--" he swept his hand wide to indicate the park and the buildings within, "--is as new to me as the babe pulled yesterday from his mother's teat."

Jun's expression remained set, but something faltered behind his eyes. "Everything changes, Rajura."

The warlord of illusion turned his head sharply to look at Jun with his good eye. "Is that a rebuke, Oni?"

"A reminder." He looked as though he would say more, and Rajura let him have the silence to say it, waiting until the words had worked their way to the fore. "I know I'm not Sh'ten."

"The thought had occurred to me," Rajura demurred.

"Then if you know it so well," Jun snapped, and there was real anger there now, "then maybe it's time you quit acting like his death was about you."

Rajura flinched. It was a slight opening, but an opening nonetheless, and Jun, warrior that he was, barreled straight through the breach.

"Sh'ten died for all of us, for our victory. Naaza and Anubisu know that. All of us know it. Except you." Jun's hand flashed up in an accusing gesture. "But all this time, it's been about you. _Your_ grief. _Your_ loss. Maybe it's about time you walk away and let the man have the honorable death he deserves. I can't make you like me, and I know I can't take his place just because I have his armor. But just because Sh'ten died, there's no reason for you to stop living along with him. He died to give you a second chance, and for all these years all you've done is run from it."

There was a devastated pause in the empty park. An icy breeze rattled the lighted trees, making the tiny bulbs chime together.

"I see," Rajura said, at last. His voice was colder than the air around them. "They made you the messenger boy."

"I came because I was _worried_ about you," Jun shot back, cramming his hands in his pockets as though to keep from throttling Rajura. "The others won't say it to you, but seeing as how you already don't like me, I figure it might as well be me."

Rajura closed the distance between them in a few slow strides, and when he spoke he was so near to Jun that the fog of their breath mingled together between them. "You've said many things tonight that are true," Rajura admitted. "But in that, you are very wrong." Rajura reached across and laid one hand on Jun's cheek, the heat of his dark skin almost enough to burn Rajura's frozen fingers. His thumb wandered just under the curve of Jun's lower lip, parted slightly in surprise at the unexpected caress. "Very wrong indeed."

Jun swallowed; Rajura could feel the subtle shift in his jaw. "You can't hold me," he breathed, "unless you let go of him."

Rajura's white brows drew together in a frown, but he did not take his hand away. "I am afraid," he whispered.

Jun's hand was more hesitant, but as he brushed his knuckles over Rajura's cheekbone, the warmth of his touch blossomed over Rajura's face like a rising sun. "You don't have to be brave enough to win," he said, and his fingers slid into the cobweb-white weight of Rajura's hair. "You just have to be brave enough to try."

Rajura frowned slightly. "Is that some insipid platitude from Rekka or--"

He got no further. Jun had leaned forward and pressed their mouths together, a decadent and brazen gesture to Rajura's sensibilities, and one that shattered all the frost in his heart. It was not Sh'ten's mouth or Sh'ten's kiss, but it was still the Oni's springtime that blazed right to his heart, thawing the snow in his hair and startling several of the nearby sakura trees into bloom. By the time Jun's tongue parted Rajura's lips with the assured skill of a conquering shogun, Rajura's capitulation was complete.

The fear had not abated--in fact it was a good deal worse--but with it came a rush of blood and a thundering pulse that even the most heated battle had never provided. He tangled his hands in Jun's hair, and the battle at last was fully joined.

"I still say these clothes are too tight," Rajura grumbled, when Jun had turned his head slightly to attend to Rajura's neck. "In fact they seem to have gotten a good deal worse."

Jun's whisper was soft against his ear, and full of dizzying promise. "I can fix that."

Rajura cleared his throat. "I know this is the modern world, and all, but surely it is still unacceptable to do such things in a public park."

Jun pulled back just far enough to give him a loaded look. "Are you the warlord of illusion," he said, "or aren't you?"

"Ah," Rajura said, and managed to conceal them in a strand of broad-trunked sakura just before Jun went to his knees and showed Rajura just how much he had to learn. "Yes," Rajura gasped, reaching for the stone lantern behind him and giving himself up to the change in seasons. "It would seem that I am." 

~o~


End file.
